


Say You're Mine

by Dangereuse



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, M/M, Skeevy Charles, Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-01-25
Updated: 2012-01-30
Packaged: 2017-10-30 02:28:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/326770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dangereuse/pseuds/Dangereuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alpha!Charles imprints on underage omega!Erik. Mishaps occur.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. What's This?

“Mr. Xavier, let me show the new bank of computers we were able to add with your generous contribution. We’ve had such exciting reports from the students about them. They’re right over here, through these doors…”

 

Charles carefully toned out the principal’s nattering. He was happy to have contributed to the school, but the man’s endless monologuing was becoming increasingly tedious. He briefly considered sending an illusory version of himself to toggle along in his staid—complete with full vocabulary of “Umhmm”, “How wonderful”, and “That’s fascinating”—while he scooted off. Perhaps the sub he’d met last night would be game for lunch again today—last night had most assuredly been an experience worth repeating.

 

Charles felt himself flush at the memory, before turning a darker pink at remembering his location. He was in a school, for Christ’s sake, and here he was, almost remembering the smell of the night before, sweat and saliva and the savory undertone of a desperate begging sub’s precome…

 

Charles jerked himself back out of his ruminations, and fumbled for handle on his imagination. Dear God, he had to get a hold of himself, as he could still smell the delicate traces of that scent in his nostrils. He deliberately tried to refocus on the principal’s words: “…completely connected to the server, and we hope to create an individualized folder on the system for each student, that will be cleared each semester…”

 

And it hit him—he wasn’t remembering that scent. It was right there, tracing the air, oh so delicately. It wasn’t quite like the night before, a little sweeter, not so heavy, like gasping drugging kisses and the flush of warm blood rising to the skin. He tried to surreptitiously flare his nostrils to get more of that _scent_ into his nostrils but it wasn’t enough—it wasn’t even close to enough. He had to find that scent,  had to pin it underneath him, had to roll around in it, until that gorgeous, beautiful scent carried a hint of himself in it—until  he _owned it_.

 

Charles heard himself growling. He couldn’t give a quarter of a fuck. He _had_ to track that scent. It had snuck stealthily up his nostrils on tiny little cat feet and lodged itself in the back of his brain with sharp and tenacious claws and where was it coming from, he needed it, deep inside him he needed it, he needed to sink inside of it until he had completely pervaded it and wrap around it until he utterly surrounded it and _he needed it right now!_

 

Charles hopped over a desk without thinking, his brain brusquely filtering out the principal’s “Hey, Mr. Xavier! What--!”, because the origin of that scent had to be on the other side of that door—. Charles shoved someone away from him, waist high, not caring, because he was close, so close, his hand was on the door, and it was swinging open, and the scent was coming through infinitely stronger now, drugging him with it, moving through him, and—.

 

There he was, eyes widened, holding his books close to his chest, ginger colored hair an absolute mess on the top of his head.

 

He was _his._


	2. No PDA is Allowed in the Hallways

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Charles goes crazy, Erik gets scared, and a failed bonding happens.

Erik was walking out of Dr. Shaw’s office when he clenched his Physics textbook closer to his chest. Ever since… What Happened the school had required Erik to meet Dr. Shaw twice a week. Today, Dr. Shaw had made noises that he’d like to see Erik an additional time every week. He wasn’t “opening up”.

 

Erik wasn’t quite sure how he was supposed to open up about how it had felt to feel his mother’s brains splatter warm and wet against his cheek. How, when he’d opened his mouth to scream, he’d tasted the metallic flavor of her blood on his tongue.

 

How it had felt, his mind scrabbling like buttered fingers against the cold metal of the gun as he tried to jerk it free.

 

How he felt the bullet (lead alloy with antimony) speeding across the air before it burrowed into her face.

 

Dr. Shaw could take his “opening up”, and shove it up his smarmy ass. The man was an idiot, pushing chocolate across the table at him, trying to use it to entice him into talking. He wanted to force the man’s wire-rimmed glasses into his face every time he asked Erik “how he was feeling today” and then tsking when he bothered to reply. Of course he felt like his world had ended.

 

It had.

 

Erik gripped tighter onto his physics textbook, his knuckles whitening. If just glaring at Shaw from across his desk made him feel so very horrible, how was talking to him ever supposed to make him feel better?

 

He walked a few steps farther down the corridor, trying to take deep breaths. Right now was not the time to be emotional. Now was time for Physics, which he actually enjoyed, with Ms. Haller who treated him just like everyone else instead of asking endless questions or asking endlessly if he was ok. He could lose himself in that for a while.

 

Erik heard shouting from the new computer lab on his left. He’d been in there often lately, since the bus he now had to take came so early in the morning. He’d spend the thirty minutes before class started online. He idly wondered who was pissing off the computer lab teacher. The man had the most furious temper, and, when it was directed safely away from him, the man’s sarcasm was especially scintillating. He felt his upper lip quirk up the tiniest in a smirk full of shadenfreude. Poor bastard. At least Erik wasn’t alone in his misery today.

 

Then the door to the computer lab burst open, the door slamming open hard enough it rebounded against the wall with a loud “thunk”.

 

Erik took a step back at the man who emerged. He wasn’t especially tall, probably an inch shorter now that Erik had hit his first serious growth spurt, with thick brown hair flopping over his forehead and deep red lips.

 

The man also possessed some seriously crazy eyes.

 

Erik took a step back. Erik had seen crazy eyes multiple times before, but on the scale of ocular insanity, this man was taking the cake.

 

And then the man lunged for him. Oh fuck no. Erik’s mind went cold and dark.

 

Erik dropped his Physics textbook just in time for the man to catch him and send them both crashing to the floor. Erik paid no mind for the filthy floor when they impacted, just swinging his fist forward to deck the man across the mouth.

 

He caught him across the cheek, knocking the man’s slightly head sideways, but Crazy-Eyes didn’t even seem to feel it, just lunging farther forward and grasping Erik’s left wrist in his hand and pinning it to the floor above Erik’s head. Erik tried to jerk that hand away before arching his hips against the man, trying to bridge his torso to buck him off. His hips caught against the man’s own , and he felt something hard and hot and heavy straining towards him through the fabric of both their pants.

 

 “ _Yield”,_ the man growled into his face, and Erik caught the answering command echoing inside his head. _Yield_ , said voice, whispering with the power of a thousand voices, all in perfect synchronization. _Yield._ The man’s face loomed above his, and he could see his eyes, and all their tumultuous  blue, boring into his, like they could pin him simply with the power of his gaze. _Yield_.

 

Something in Erik folded against that voice. He stopped struggling for the barest second, his very bones melting inside at that command. All at once, he could hear—no _feel­­—_ something very dark and intense writhing against his mind, growling and snarling: _mine, mark you, bite you, fuck you,_ keep _you, Mine._ The man used his second of lassitude to grip both of his wrists in one of his own, knocking them hard and painful against the dirty school tile.

 

For a second, Erik could feel his eyes cross with pleasure and the sharp clack of his bones against the floor, and the feel of strong fingers nearly bruising him at the wrist. Something warm unfurled inside him, and made him want to wriggle his hips. Then a jolt of fear burst through him: he’d _enjoyed_ that?!? The fear jerked him out of whatever is was keeping him melting against the man pinning him, and set his struggles anew.

 

The voice in the back of his mind, hungry and feral, _howled_ at his renewed struggles. _Mine, Mine, yield to me, You are MINE._ The man’s lower body started to grind against his, and his free hand scrabbled at Erik’s shirt. He caught his fingers in the elastic neck and yanked. The stitching snapped and the stretchy overwashed fabric tore with a _shrrrrrippp_.

 

His shirt. The shirt his mother had given him for his fifteenth birthday, two weeks before she died seven months ago. The shirt she had wrapped horribly with tape and brown butcher’s paper and jokingly pretended wasn’t for him. _The last gift Edie Lehnsherr had ever given him while still on this Earth._

 

The man, the crazy-eyed man, buried his face in Erik’s chest, and began licking and suckling on his chest and neck, his red tongue leading trails of saliva over goose-pimpling flesh. Erik didn’t care.

 

He fiercely yanked at one of his hands out of the grip above his head, flinging his hand out, fingers spread up the hallway. _You look like you have constipated jazz-hands when you do that_ , his mother had once told him, smiling and laughing as Erik strained to make tiny little metal sculptures for her to guess what they were.

 

 _Come_ , he called, calling forth that something deep inside him that told him what every metal in the surrounding area was, that ensured that he never got lost and always knew exactly where magnetic north was, that bit of him, that, when he concentrated just right, sent every piece of metal in the vicinity flying straight towards him.

 

He reached that part of him for the lockers down the hall, calling every inch of the zinc-coated steel towards him. He idly felt the man sink his teeth into the skin of his neck, but the pain of the bite barely registered when he could feel each atom of the metal calling out for him, reveling in his mental touch, shrieking as it was torn from the wall and started hurling towards him.

 

With his all his concentration, he flung it right at Crazy-Eyes, his mind flaring with the gleeful satisfaction at what he knew would happen when it hit. 

 

The man paused, his head tilting upwards from his chest, eyes widening and seeming to calm. One of the man’s hands went flying to his temple. Erik felt the tide of _mine, mine, mine_ abate slightly, to be replaced with an _Oh God_ and _something_ digging into his mind.

 

The electric feel of the mangled locker abruptly shut off, and Erik heard it crash brutally into the floor too far away for it to help him.

 

The man watched the locker crash to floor, with a dazed look, before shifting his weight of Erik, and leaning back on his heels. “Oh dear.”

 

Erik scrambled backwards, jerking away from the hand the man still had on his shoulder, looking around for someone, something, to help. His gaze lit upon the principal and Dr. Shaw staring at both him and the _certifiably insane_ man with shocked looks on their faces.

 

Erik tried to scuttle towards them, farther away from his attacker. When they broke skin contact, the man let out a keening noise and surged at him again. Erik flinched, squeezing his eyes tight, and reached for the metal again, trying to overcome whatever kept blocking the feel of all of it humming for his touch.

 

For a second, Erik kept expecting to feel the man’s weight crushing him to the floor again, and he braced for it. It didn’t come. Erik peeled one eye open to peek. The man had dropped his hands to the side, and was now looking abjectly miserable.

 

For a long moment, they just stared at each other, and no one spoke, the hall silent until the bell rang, shrill and pervasive.

 

“It appears,” Dr. Shaw said, “that we have found the key to your mutation.”

 


	3. Principal's Offices Are Made for Confrontations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Charles's animal brain cannot figure out why he's not having sex yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Charles is a wee bit OOC here, because his hormones are all haywire and all he wants to do is slide into Erik’s body and make him scream in a very good way. Oh, and there is coarse language. Erik is a potty mouth when scared. And Ms. Haller was apparently was Magneto’s lawyer when he was on trial in the comics. I figured it was apt. We are also disregarding all the comic history where she dated Charles, blah-blah-blah. ;)

They were sitting in the principal’s office. It wasn’t the first time he’d been in there. It wasn’t the first time he’d been in here while Dr. Shaw was pontificating about his emotional trauma. It wasn’t even the first time he’d been in here for fighting.

 

It was, however, the first time Erik had been in there for imprinting with one Mr. Xavier, A.K.A. Crazy-Eyes, who’s hands were firmly placed on his shoulders and whose shirt he was currently wearing. Mr. Xavier had calmed down considerably, but didn’t react well to breaking physical contact and _really_ didn’t react well to other dominants getting close to his bare-chested submissive. Erik clenched his fingers in his ruined T-shirt in his lap.

 

Erik’s skin was crawling where Mr. Xavier’s fingers lay on his shoulders. He couldn’t decide which was better, jerking the man’s grip off and dealing with the growling and snarling and attempts at biting, or letting him rest his hands on him.

 

Principal Summers leaned across the desk at Erik, before he could decide, addressing him for the first time since this had started. “Mr. Lehnsherr. Do you know what has happened today?”

 

Erik shimmied his shoulders uncomfortably, but Mr. Xavier’s fingers just tightened. “My guess is that Mr. Xavier imprinted on me, went batshit insane and then tried to eat me.” Erik rubbed the bite-mark on base of his neck with the heel of his hand.

 

Principal Summers broke eye-contact to shuffle papers, Dr. Shaw frowned, and Erik felt a pulse of something like guilt seep down into his shoulders.

 

Mr. Xavier said: “Essentially, yes. Although the ‘eating’ part was quite metaphorical, and not literal, I assure you.” One of the hands slid from his shoulder up to his neck, before closing over Erik’s hand and gently pulling it away from the mark. Still holding Erik’s hand in his, Charles extended his index finger to rub over the rapidly purpling mark. A deep pleasurable sound slid out of Charles’s throat and slipped down Erik’s spine, making his whole back break out in a whole army of goosebumps. “Good.” He pressed lightly on the mark. “Don’t cover it up, I want to see it,” he purred, withdrawing his finger.

 

 Erik ripped his hand out of Mr. Xavier’s grip and himself out of his chair before darting halfway behind Principal Summer’s desk. “The fuck you will!” His hand shot up to cover his neck. “I’m not yours and I’ll wear those fucking sweaters with the necks every fucking day until it fucking goes away!”

 

“It’s late April.” Shaw said.

 

Erik turned to him with wide and betrayed eyes. “Are you _going to let him do this to me?!?_ ”

 

“No,” said a sharp feminine voice from the doorway, “we are not.”

 

It was Ms. Haller, standing there in the doorway, fierce and strong.

 

 

With Ms. Haller there, the proceedings were going a little bit better, at least for Erik. Ms. Haller had taken it upon herself to representing him until his case worker from the orphanage could arrive. She was a sub too, so Mr. Xavier could tolerate her touching Erik, but she was hardly letting anyone else in the room walk all over her.

 

“I am sorry, Mr. Xavier, but we cannot allow Erik to leave with you. He’s underage. It would be a violation of all this school stands for.” She squeezed Erik’s hand reassuringly.

 

Unfortunately, even she couldn’t keep Mr. Xavier from touching Erik. He had Erik’s other hand, and was alternating in between gripping it so tightly Erik was sure the blood flow to his fingers was being compromised, and stroking the pads of the fingers and the creases of his palms lightly and sensuously until Erik could feel the goose-bumps on his back had made their return with a vengeance. It was one of the instances where Mr. Xavier’s fingers were clamped too-tight around his.

 

“Then how do you suggest we proceed?” Erik flexed his fingers in Mr. Xavier’s grip, and Mr. Xavier’s fingers loosened slightly, before Mr. Xavier’s brought his other hand up to Erik’s. He made a loose circle with his fingers around Erik’s wrist, before sliding the flesh-manacle up his forearm, slowly letting out his fingers as he ascended Erik’s arm, to maintain the same light gripping pressure.

 

“I propose we wait for Erik’s case worker to get here. Surely they have dealt with similar instances before. They will know the proper procedure.”

 

Erik felt Charles lift his hand up, seemingly examining his hand before lifting it to his face and nuzzling into it.

 

 Erik’s whole body tensed and he looked at Ms. Haller for guidance. She frowned, before squeezing his hand in reassurance. “Mr. Xavier, do you think you could manage to keep physical contact to the level of hand-holding?”

 

 

 

Charles cradled his cheek in Erik’s hand, inhaling deeply of the scent of the boy’s skin, blocking out whatever that damn harridan had to say. Mmmn. Erik. His boy. His good boy. Charles couldn’t resist shifting his lips against Erik’s palm, until he could press a kiss to the slightly roughened and chapped skin. He was going to have to make sure Erik took better care of his hands… He slipped his tongue out, for a taste.

 

Erik whipped his hand back out of Charles’ grasp so fast Charles almost didn’t realize it. He let out a snarl and grabbed for Erik’s hand before he caught himself. Erik reeled back into his chair, clutching his hand to his chest and leaning back into Ms. Haller. A wave of fear rose off of him strongly enough that Charles’s mind recoiled and he was able to calm himself down. Charles closed his eyes and fisted his fingers in his slacks before forcing himself to count down from twenty-five. It didn’t help. Every second they weren’t touching Charles got antsier and antsier and antsier. He felt like his skin was too big and too small at the same time, and it was rapidly becoming increasingly itchy.

 

He forced himself to articulate: “Could I have your hand back, Erik? It’s grounding.”

 

He could sense Erik’s reluctance and dislike of the idea with his telepathy. It was almost unnerving, the instinct to bond hijacking his telepathy until he could only read and project intermittently.

 

“If you don’t let him at least touch you, the likelihood we’ll all be front-row witnesses to your bonding increases exponentially, Erik,” Shaw drawled.

 

Erik stared at Shaw for a moment, before blanching and reluctantly offering his hand again. Charles realized his fingers were re-wrapping around Erik’s hand before he even gave them the command to move. The itching of his skin desisted, but the too-small/too-large feeling persisted.

 

He almost sighed in relief when the intercom on Principal Summer’s desk went off:  “A Mr. Darwin here to see you sir. He says it’s about Mr. Lehnsherr.” Surely _he_ would know what to do with the situation. 


	4. Charles's Heart is No Longer in this Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Raven is inventive and Charles gets desperate.

Erik thought they all could have done so far without Mr. Darwin’s _contributions_ to this situation. All he was doing was agitating the man with the death grip on his fingers, which made every hair on Erik’s spine stand on, end, and make unease pool in his belly. The only thing that kept Erik from glaring daggers at the man was the fact that there were no daggers in the room to glare. He eyed Principal Summer’s letter opener with some consideration anyway.

 

“As I’m sure those of you in this room who have experienced bonding remember, the bond between a mated pair does not settle, nor does the alpha’s…possessiveness…abate until successful copulation occurs. However, here, our young Mr. Lehnsherr’s body failed to go into heat upon being successfully imprinted on by his true alpha, suggesting—”.

 

“He’s not _ours_ ,” Mr. Xavier snapped. Erik, against his better judgment, turned to look at the man with the death grip on his palm. Oh shit. The crazy was coming back into his eyes.

 

“— _Suggesting_ that Mr. Lenhsherr is too immature for this bonding.” Immature? Erik could feel his shoulders rising up to his ears defensibly. He was hardly a child. Darwin continued despite Erik’s consternation: “As the case worker appointed for Mr. Lehnsherr by the state, I will have to ensure that you are kept away from Mr. Lehnsherr until he proves himself physically capable of accommodating a bond and the acc—.”

 

Part of Erik perked up. They were going to keep Mr. Xavier and his crazy away from him? He almost managed an excited wiggle in his seat, before, to his surprise, Mr. Xavier dropped his hand and leaned forward on his chair.

 

“ _Are you trying to take him away from me?_ ” Erik expected the words to come out enraged, growling and snarling, but instead Mr. Xavier’s voice keened, as if the very words themselves were crying out in agonizing pain.

 

“I’m afraid I have no choice, Mr. Xavier.”

 

If Erik had thought the Mr. Xavier looked crazy before, it was nothing on how he looked now. He looked furious, nearly shaking with it, his eyes seeming to glow from within. “Then I am afraid that I have none either.” Erik saw Mr. Xavier’s fingers fly to his temple, just like they had while the two of them had been grappling in the hallway, just when he’d lost the beautiful humming of metal beneath his mental fingertips.

 

Erik didn’t know what made him do it. Perhaps it was the long-ago memory of his father, standing in front of his violently livid mother, gently holding her face in his hands despite her spitting and vituperous ragings, and saying, so softly: “Edie, Edie, Please, I need you right now. Be my rock, Edie.” Perhaps it was the white-hot anger he felt projected at him through Mr. Xavier’s fingers, perhaps it was the part of him that melted before under Mr. Xavier’s rough touch. Erik didn’t know. 

 

Erik extricated his hand from Ms. Haller’s without thinking, raising his fingers to the side of Mr. Xavier’s face. He cupped it with his fingers, before sending his fingers into the man’s thick brown hair, and carefully scratching at his scalp with short fingernails. “Shhhh. Stop being so crazy. Really.” His voice was gentle enough that he himself barely recognized it.

 

For a second, every muscle in Xavier’s body tensed, and Erik thought Mr. Xavier was going to go ballistic and start chomping people’s fingers like little baby carrots. Which was unfortunate, as Erik’s fingers were the closest to Mr. Xavier’s mouth.

 

But then Mr. Xavier’s fingers dropped from his temple to wrap around Erik’s wrist, and he made a low sound in his throat.

 

Mr. Xavier tilted his head away from Darwin, fixing his eyes instead on Erik. For a second, they flashed hot, furious, before the heat abruptly converted from white-hot anger to something liquid and sultry. Erik felt for a moment that he was drowning and burning at the same time, sinking into something that blazed and crackled like the best winter fire and slid thick and wet across his body like warm molasses. Heat rose from the skin beneath his fingertips, warming his hands and transmuting his insides into something hot and lambent. _Want_ _you,_ whispered across his mind, feverish and wanting, _I want you_. A thumb brushed his lips, tugging his lip down to bare the slick insides of his mouth.

 

He jerked his hands free of Mr. Xavier’s hair and scooted his chair back.

 

Mr. Xavier didn’t even follow him; he just slid his damp thumb into his own mouth and licked off the slight moisture from Erik’s.

 

  _So delicious_ , the words seared their way into Erik’s mind. _I want to taste every inch of you._

_Holy Shit,_ Erik thought.

 

“Fascinating.” Dr. Shaw’s voice broke Erik’s best deer in the headlights impression. He leaned forward, steepling his fingers, the most interested expression he’d ever seen on the man gracing his face. “Erik, what prompted you to calm Mr. Xavier?”

 

Erik was morally opposed to answering any question Dr. Shaw ever posited to him, and so ignored him completely. “I don’t want to go with Mr. Xavier,” he stated as firmly as he could.

 

“Then it’s settled. Mr. Lehnsherr and I will return to—”, Darwin started, looking slightly relieved. Dr. Shaw’s expression of displeasure deepened.

 

“Absolutely not! _I—_ ”, Mr. Xavier retorted hotly.

 

Ms. Haller cut in, voice clipped and cool and brutally honest. “And what will happen if you take him now, Mr. Xavier? Will you be able to keep your distance, or will you force the boy?” Mr. Xavier turned to her, eyes wide and horrified, a denial on his red, red lips. “Tell me _truly_.” She paused, before licking her lips and continuing, softer, but no less fierce. “If you take him now it is _rape_ , Mr. Xavier. Rape of the one person who is the other half of your own soul. Is that truly how you wish your relationship with Erik to begin? Are the needs of your body so great?”

 

Mr. Xavier’s face twisted horribly at her words, as if he’d sucked on a lemon, bitten his tongue, and been forced to chug hot cat urine before he dragged his gaze back onto Erik. Then his face softened and turned horribly familiar.

 

Mr. Xavier’s face looked just like Erik felt when he gripped his silver picture frame of his mother, trying not to drip tears on the glass pane, and wished, wished so desperately, that he could have his mom back, just for a moment. Mr. Xavier’s jaw clenched tightly enough that Erik could see the tension in the muscles and fisted his hands again in his slacks. “No. No. You’re right.” His voice came out as a whisper. “You’re right. Just take him quickly. I don’t know if I can watch him walk away.”

 

Ms. Haller stood and Erik scrambled up right after her, hastily grabbing the wrecked ruins of his birthday present.

 

“Mr. Darwin. We’ll be in my office. Come collect Erik when you’re ready.”

 

They walked out without a backwards glance.

 

 

 

 

 

 


	5. Raven Saves Lives and Makes Dieters Jealous

“What the hell happened to you, Charles?” Were the first words out of Raven’s mouth when Charles burst through the door to their home.

 

Charles neatly sidestepped her and headed to the family library. “Raven. I need your help.”

 

“Anything, Charles, what?” Raven had dropped her pink human form in concern, trailing after Charles.

 

“You cannot, under any circumstances, allow me to leave this flat tonight.” Charles had picked up the genetics journal he’d been in the middle of reading and tossed it on the floor before striding over to the sideboard. Upon reaching it, Charles poured himself two fingers of brandy, downed it, and poured three fingers more.

 

“Woah, woah, woah, Charles, what happened?” Raven picked up the slightly crumpled journal from the floor, and put it back on the side table next to Charles’s armchair, before looking up to find Charles had left the room entirely.

 

She caught him in the living room, flicking through television channels fast enough to blur, before he made to chuck the remote at the floor. “Charles! What are you doing!” She used her mutation to bulk up enough to pry it from his hands, before returning to normal and hiding the remote safely behind her back.

 

“I don’t even know! My skin itches all over and I’ve never been so hard in my life!” Charles fisted his fingers in his hair and paced for a few steps.

 

“O-kay.” Raven took a deep breath and tried not to think of rashes and sores and things. “Do you want me to go to the clinic with you?”

 

Charles stopped abruptly. “Oh God, I said that out loud. I’m terribly sorry.” Then Charles blinked at Raven and she could feel an itch on the back of her mind that she could have sworn she’d gotten Charles to promise not to do, “Oh God, you think I have an STD,” he blurted.

 

“Well, what else am I supposed to think? And you promised to stay out of my mind!”

 

“Did I?” Charles smiled sadly, rubbing his hands open palmed over his skin, like it itched, but he didn’t quite dare to scratch. “I’m sorry, I’m having trouble controlling everything. I almost started an orgy earlier on the subway.” He gestured idly at his temple, before reaching up to undo another button of his shirt. Charles fidgeted in place for a minute, before bursting into motion again. 

 

Raven had had enough. She walked over to Charles, seized his wrist, and held him still. “Charles Francis Xavier. You will tell me what happened to you today or so help me I will kick your ass.”

 

Charles winced at her grip, and pried gently at her fingers. “All right, all right, just—don’t touch, please. It hurts when you do that.”

 

“Sounds fair.” But before she let go, Raven steered him to the couch and sat him down. “Now spill.”

 

Charles perched at the edge of the leather, legs tucked underneath him as if any second he’d jump up and run away. He picked at the cuffs of his too-large shirt. Principal Summer had forced him to wear his office spare before Charles left, so he wouldn’t be running around shirtless. Charles couldn’t have cared less at that juncture. The scent of Erik had been fading from the room, and all he’d wanted to do was to follow it and bury his nose (and perhaps other things) in him. All of a sudden, the scent of Principal Summer’s detergent became too much.

 

“Whoah! Charles! Warn a girl, would you!” Raven yelled.

 

Charles just tossed the shirt over the back of the couch, before turning back to Raven. And then realized he’d just ripped off his shirt in front of his younger sister. His face blushed bright red.

 

“Sorry.” He winced. “It itched?”

 

“I see that. What I don’t see is you telling me what happened today.”

 

Charles carefully situated himself so that he wasn’t touching any of the couch with his newly bared skin. “I imprinted.” His knee started to bob up and down, rapid-fire.

 

“That’s wonderful!” Raven said carefully, wondering where in the hell Charles’s new bondmate was. Why were they not fucking like rabbits? Raven had friends who’d already been bonded, and they tended to drop off the face of the Earth for a week or so, and then come back hardly able to walk without wincing, but with big satisfied grins on their faces. Although this did explain Charles’s spontaneous nudity. “Where is she? Or is it a he?”

 

“He.” Charles wiggled in his chair and bit his lip. “Erik. Erik Lehnsherr. I met him during the tour of the school. And we can’t bond.”

 

Raven rubbed her face. They were getting absolutely nowhere. “Ok, so what happened? I don’t understand. Surely they’d let him off work for a few days so you two can bond.”

 

Charles shook his head, a little wildly. “He’s a student.”

 

Raven dropped her hand from her face. “No.”

 

“He’s fifteen. He’s got these beautiful grey-blue eyes that turn bottle green when he’s furious. He’s so thin. I could almost span his tiny waist with my hands,” Charles lifted them up in demonstration, “and his shoulders were so small I felt as if I could break him under my fingers. I want to hold him. I want to see if I really can cut myself on the sharp edge of his jaw. I definitely could off the sharp edge of his teeth.”

 

Nausea took root in Raven’s stomach. “Charles, no. Just—no.”

 

“Don’t you think I know that?! Do you think I am not repulsed by myself at the same time I want nothing more than him in his entirety? He is fifteen, and his soft skin and tender immature muscles are barely wrapped around his skinny underdeveloped bones and I could barely think to feed him over the driving urge to fuck him and I have never wanted anything more than him in my entire life!” Raven was wide-eyed after his delivery, absolutely shocked that Charles had raised his voice and cursed at her. Charles was breathing wildly, poised motionless for a microsecond before he burst off the couch to stand in a corner of the room.

 

Raven flinched, before standing up. Slowly she trailed after Charles.

 

“Charles,” she whispered from behind him, reaching out a blue hand to comfort. Charles flinched even before her fingers could brush his back and she withdrew. “Charles. I cannot even imagine what you are feeling right now. But I do, and will always, love you.” She licked her lips, her mouth suddenly dry. “I’ll make sure you don’t leave this house until tomorrow.”

 

Charles nodded slowly in reply.

 

 

Raven couldn’t even comprehend the depths of what she had promised to do for her brother. After his confession, they had stood in awkward silence for a while, before Raven had started to blather about her day. She found it calming when Charles did the reverse for her.

 

But it just seemed to agitate Charles. He was pacing back and forth and when she thought Charles might have had the right idea earlier, with the drinking until he wasn’t quite so wired, and kipped into the library for a the barest instant to grab the carafe of brandy on the side-board, and then slipped back in the study where Charles was supposed to be, he’d managed to slink out into the entryway to put on his coat.

 

“And where do you think you’re going?” Raven slipped modulated her voice just right until it sounded like the late Sharon Xavier. Changing her voice just slightly to mimic Charles’s mother had, on previous occasions, caused Charles an instant guilt that usually was enough to pause him.

 

Charles’s shoulders tightened, over his newly donned jacket. He hadn’t bothered to put a new shirt on underneath. Raven supposed it was lucky he’d thought to grab the jacket. “I thought I might kip over to Hank’s, ask him how Cerebro’s going.”

 

Raven purposefully tapped her foot and kept her borrowed voice. “Of course.”

 

“I absolutely loathe when you do that,” Charles muttered under his breath. “God this is hard.”

 

Raven felt the absurd desire to make a ‘that’s what she said’ comment. She also refrained from looking Charles’s pants.

 

“Come back to the living room.”

 

Charles muttered, but complied.

 

 

However, Charles’s compliance went downhill rapidly from there, while his agitation went up at an inversely proportional rate.

 

At four, Charles said it was imperative he find Erik and give him his phone number. He might need to call.

 

At four ten, Raven had to wrestle an extremely furious Charles into submission into the hallway. It went badly until Raven realized she could shapeshift, gained a hundred or so pounds, and sat on him.

 

At four thirty, Charles had seemingly exhausted himself. Raven gingerly let him up.

 

At four thirty-three, Raven gained another fifty pounds and sat on his head for good measure. 

 

At four forty-three, Charles’s lungs issued an ultimatum to Charles’s cock. Charles’s head chose to side with the part that supplied it with oxygen. Charles calmed down.

 

At five o’clock, newly installed in the kitchen as Raven tried to scrap together something to eat, (Sitting on a wildly struggling crazy man apparently stimulated the appetite) Charles started detailing every single thing he could remember about Erik. It took him ten extremely detailed minutes. He even projected an illusory Erik into the kitchen for Raven to see.

 

At five-ten, Charles was appalled he knew absolutely nothing about his omega. He started to panic again. Raven put down her sandwich and threateningly gained weight. It had no effect.

 

Five-twelve. Charles dialed Mr. Darwin. He tried to adopt one Mr. Erik Lehnsherr. Upon receiving a resounding no, his argument for adoption completely dissolved. He started to shout depreciations.

 

Five-twenty-two. Mr. Darwin hung up. Charles continued shouting until he heard the dial tone.

 

Five-thirty-five. Charles had turned a shade of bright red that Raven had never seen. She started to worry about Charles’s heart health. She found a lone aspirin in a small dusty pill bottle in one of the cabinet drawers.

 

Five-thirty-five, Charles went terribly, terribly quiet. The red color of his face did not fade. He stood stock still in the kitchen.

 

Five-thirty-seven. Raven rattled the lone aspirin in the bottle in an attempt to garner a reaction. Charles ignored her completely. Raven cautiously finished her sandwich.

 

Five-fifty. Mt. Charles erupted. Ever so silent, ever so deadly. “I can feel his mind. I can feel it quiver underneath my touch. I can make him wish he’d never tried to keep Erik from me. He just wants to keep Erik for himself.”

 

Five-fifty and twenty seven seconds. Raven panicked, and did what she did best. She shifted. Right into one green-eyed, ginger-haired boy.

 

At five-fifty-one, Charles clasped Raven-Erik tightly enough against his chest that Raven felt slightly bruised. Charles was babbling. “I know you’re not him, and you don’t smell like him and you don’t even feel like him in my head, but oh God, don’t even move.”

 

Six-forty-seven, Charles released Raven from where he’d dragged her to the couch to softly pet her borrowed hair. “I think it’s best if you shifted back now,” he said.


	6. Raven's Eyes Are Permanently Scarred

Charles had never felt so aroused. He was sitting in his study, perching on a leather couch with his sister back in her right form five feet away, for Christ’s sakes, and all he could think about was having gorgeously hot and sweaty sex with Erik, both their bodies slicked with sweat and come and Erik’s natural slick and chests heaving with heavy panting breaths.

 

He tried to pull his mind away and not make eye contact with Raven. He’d never been so hard and so deeply nauseated. He picked up a decorative pillow and tried to nonchalantly cover his pants. He played with the fringe on the edge as a cover, acting for all the world as if he’d suddenly discovered an abiding interest in stroking the edging of small pillows. Charles was sure his cheeks had flamed into brilliant life.

 

Charles tried to shift his weight under cover of pillow. The zipper of his trousers was killing him, pressing too hard against his overly excited flesh and forcing his attention to focus on what he was trying so desperately to avoid. He wondered if Erik had enough fine control over his mutation to open his zipper, enough to draw down the small tab and slowly part the metal teeth, to release that sharp pressure of cloth against his cock before pressing his face into the vee of his parted trouser fabric and nuzzling his wet, parted lips against—.

 

Charles took a large swallow of the light brown liquor in his glass to jerk himself out of his fantasy. Desperately, he clutched the fabric of the pillow in his other hand to kill the temptation to slip it into his pants. Charles tried to focus on the burn of the alcohol in his mouth and down his throat, but the only thing he wanted to taste across his tongue was the slick he’d make drip down from Erik, hot and salty-bittersweet. God, he could chase the flavor up the insides of Erik’s thighs, make Erik shiver in overstimulated pleasure from the tickle of his tongue, could follow the rich taste and hot pheromone ridden smell up until he met that tight, quivering little furl of red stretched muscle and laved until he caught the taste of his own self.

 

Charles heard his name from far away. “Charles. Charles. Chaaaaaaaaaarrrles.” He dragged his attention over to it as best he could. Charles felt almost dizzy, although he supposed that wasn’t surprising, as it seemed like most of his blood had decided to migrate south for the duration of the evening.

 

Raven was leaning forward in the sofa across from him, snapping her fingers. “Are you okay over there?”

 

Charles pushed the pillow harder into his lap.

 

“I think I should excuse myself,” he said, lightheaded.

 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Raven tried. “You’ve already tried to leave, twice, and I don’t know what you almost did to—that guy—earlier.”

 

Charles fidgeted. “I think it might be necessary.”

 

“So you can conveniently forget your code of ethics again?”

 

“I don’t think that will happen.” He tried to hint.

 

Raven snorted. “And I think you’re trying to trick me again. _Oh Raven, I only want to give Erik my phone number, I’ll leave as soon as he has it. What if he needs to talk to me? What if he has an emergency and 911 services are down?_ ” 

 

They both stood in silence, glaring at each other.  Charles couldn’t even manage to feel embarrassed about his horrible ploy from earlier. He pressed harder on the cushion in his lap. The stuffing inside was firm, but yielded beautifully under the press of his hands and cock. He wondered if Erik’s flesh would yield like that, if his muscle and skin would dimple under his grip, until blood rose underneath the pressure of his fingertips and teeth to leave purple-red marks—little beautiful brightly-colored blushes of ‘This Belongs to _Me’_.

 

Charles had to abruptly ease up the pressure on the pillow, because the feeling had perceptibly snapped from 'Down, Lassie!' into 'If I press harder--Oh, Oh, Yeeessss.' He choked off a groan in the back of his throat.

 

Raven’s golden eyes went absurdly wide. “Oooh,” she breathed.

 

The silence between them took on an obscenely awkward tint, both siblings trying not to make eye contact. Raven’s cheeks purpled. “Umm, I guess...  I need to leave.” She gestured, towards the door.

 

Charles, voice strangled, spoke: "That would be best." He tried to offer up a reassuring smile. Only the barest weak glimpse of a tooth showed itself.

 

“Ummm," Raven drew the sound out, almost painfully. She clenched her hands on her knees and fixated her gaze on her whitening knuckles. "I don't know if it's safe to leave you alone," she blurted.

 

Charles head flopped back on headrest of the couch in despair. He knew it was true. “I can’t take care of…things…while you’re here!” He hissed out between his teeth.

 

Raven looked up to the ceiling as if praying for help, and took a deep breath. "It's not like I want to see! I don’t even want to know about you doing those..types of things!" She blurted. "Can't you just...not?"

 

Charles wiggled in his seat and took a deep breath. Arousal was just a bodily urge, hardly a necessary function, he didn't _need_ to, Charles told himself.

 

His cock told him flatly it was going to drill a hole through his trousers into the decorative cushion if he didn’t let it free and just fucking touch it already.

 

Charles and his cock argued passionately for a few moments, with the pillow as the intermediary.

 

"Oh fuck, I can't, Raven, I don't think I could walk right now, much less get half-way across town, just five minutes, give me five minutes!" The pillow was already off his lap and halfway across the room and his hand was going places it never should have dared with Raven in the room.

 

"All right! All right!" Raven shrieked, her hands flying up to her eyes. "You owe me so much, Charles Francis Xavier, so fucking much!"

 

She ran to the door.

 

Charles barely noticed the door slamming behind her. His pants were down his hips and his hand was in his pants and his cock was in his hand, and Erik was behind his eyelids, and his the memory of his scent was in his nostrils and his voice, his beautiful voice was ringing, imagined, in his ears and oh, God, he was coming, he was coming, and he'd never had an orgasm like this in his life, he understood why this was _le petit mort_ , he was dying, like every cell in his body was pouring out of him and into his hand until he was empty and hollow inside.

 

And still Charles's empty, hollow remains determinedly burned, the pounding need of lust still resounding in his gut and curling in his groin. Charles panted into the air, and let go of his cock in disgust. His hand was wet with his own ejaculate, and he couldn't look at, because the white marking his palm was supposed to be inside Erik, he shouldn’t even be able to see his own seed until Erik was so full of it that it spilled from his red, overworked hole to slide slowly down the insides of his trembling thighs, until Erik was so sore and aching that Charles took his boy’s mouth and came across his swollen lips to spare his tender arse.

 

He groaned and tried to inhale a deep calming breath, but the musty tang of his own release filled the air and the smell of it made him yearn for the scent of what together he and his boy would smell like, what the two of them, the aroma of their sweat and slick and come would feel like heavy in his nostrils. Charles angrily wiped his come on his belly and tried to ignore his bobbing erection curving towards his stomach. The damned thing hadn’t even flagged the tiniest bit, bright red and perky and begging for touch.

 

Charles took deep breaths and slid sideways on the couch and dragged on foot up onto the cushions, until his back was touching the seat and his other leg splayed and dropped to the ground.

 

He tilted up for a moment to look at his cock, before dropping his head back on the couch cushion and closed his eyes. He lifted his hand back to his cock and started to stroke. The feel of his hand felt so wrong.

 

But it felt better than nothing.

 

 

At four o’ clock in the morning, and an innumerable number of orgasms later, Charles dick was sore and chafed in his hand, his cock had lost all interest in any proceedings, and he knew without a doubt that the sofa beneath him needed to be burned immediately. He felt disgusted he hadn’t even made it to his bed.

 

Charles got off of the sofa slowly and searched behind the couch for Summer’s shirt from earlier. He mopped up as much of the mess on his chest as he could before buckling his pants walking to the door. He was filthy and smelled worse, but inside he felt so lonely that the state of his skin and the smell of his furious wanking session barely registered.

 

When he swung the door open, he found Raven sitting there in a chair from the dining room, a book in hand and tired eyes. But she snapped up from her seat and looked prepared to deter him anyways. It hurt Charles’s heart.  He felt a bone-deep shame that Raven was still here, keeping her word and standing sentinel here for him.

 

Raven caught the look on his face, and the balled up shirt clenched in his fist, and slowly lowered her book to her chair. She turned slightly away from him, because she knew he would hated every second of being seen like this.

 

Charles cleared his throat and struggled to find words somewhere deep inside him. “I’m going to shower now.”

 

Raven nodded and looked down at her blue hands. “How are you feeling?”

 

“I’m…fine.” Charles took a deep breath and forced his voice hard and clinical. “My body must be incapable of producing such high levels of hormones for so long without the presence of my omega.”

 

And Raven nodded again, and Charles shuffled away, up the stairs, and into the shower.

 

Charles stood there under the spray for another hour or more, until all evidence of his lust had long past dissolved and swirled down the drain, to the point that even his recirculating hot water heater could not give the water warmth.

 

His skin cooled until his joints ached and his skin pimpled with the chill. And he cried, his tears a slow dripping counterpoint against the punishing spray, because his heart, his very soul, was fifteen and so terribly far away. 


	7. Threats, And Great Friendship

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t even know what happened with this word vomit here: Azazel wanted to talk like a chav and wouldn’t shut up about Janos (Innit he peng?), Emma was like WTF? Why am I and my gloriousness not yet in this chapter? (I told her she’d have to wait some more) And Erik was being so whiney I wanted to smack him, but then I restrained myself because, well, his circumstances suck and have you seen the young Fassbender? *gets all flushed* Here is his cuteness if you have not: http://sarah-pete-designs.tumblr.com/post/3571843629/avila04b-guess-who-its-michael-fassbender and http://subtilior.tumblr.com/post/15110461456/juuuuust-to-remind-me-that-this-guy-is-human

 

The bruise on Erik’s neck was truly terrific. The bright conglomeration of purple and red proclaimed to all the world: ‘Erik’s got a hickey, Erik’s got a hickey.’ Erik covered it with his hand in the mirror. It was Erik’s first such mark. He hadn’t allowed anyone to mark him—he’d never been the deadly level of serious about someone. And here, his first such mark was forced on him by a crazy man who crazily accosted him in the hall. Erik felt anger rise up in himself, that Mr. Xavier would presume so much.

 

Erik pressed on the bruise with two fingers in an effort to ascertain how long it would last. A dull pain radiated off of it, and Erik felt something pool in his gut that made his eyes flutter and his knees a bit weak. Erik withdrew his hand quickly.

 

All right, so apparently somewhere inside, he liked it. A little. Fine. So table exploration for a jerk-off session later, and now put on the damn turtleneck! Two shirts were resting on his bed: a crew-neck T-Shirt, which would display the mark in all its glory, and a light turtleneck with full coverage. He wanted to wear the turtleneck.

 

Erik just couldn’t put the sweater on. He heard, over and over, Mr. Xavier whispering in his head: \ _I want to see it._ _I want to see it. Iwanttoseeit._ He glared at the offending T-shirt on the bed.

 

He was going to be late to the bus. Erik idly wondered if they’d let him out of school today because of yesterday. Then it wouldn’t matter about his damn shirt, he could just stand in here shirtless and half-naked until tomorrow.

 

And then he felt a giant wave of self-disgust overcome him, followed by a blinding surge of rage. He felt the metal bedframe under him twitch and vibrate. Here he was, dithering over which shirt to wear, and honestly contemplating skipping school over the fact he couldn’t pick the fucking knitwear that he wanted. __

He kicked the T-Shirt off the bed and whipped the turtleneck over his head. This was bullshit, and he wasn’t standing for it.

 

`````

 

Darwin opened the door to his office, walked in, and gingerly sat down, holding his overfull paper cup of hot coffee gingerly in his fingers, before Charles deigned to show himself.

 

“Hello,” Charles said from the chair he was sprawled in. He was perched sideways in the chair, legs over the arm-rest, as he looked idly at the fingers of his left hand. Charles held a manila file folder in the other, which he swung back and forth against the chair leg in a neat, even rhythm. 

 

Darwin jumped, and the coffee cup spilled up over his fingers onto his daily planner. A little puff of steam went up when the coffee hit the paper. “That’s a nice trick, disappearing and reappearing like that.” He pulled a couple of wadded disposable napkins from his coat pocket to drop on his desk, watching Charles warily as he sat down behind it. Charles was a dominant who had just gone through terrible submissive withdrawal. There was no telling what he could be motivated to do.

 

“I could say the same for you. Adaptation, isn’t it? Your mutation. Kept you from getting burned just now.” Charles looked over from his chair, as if Darwin had just merely managed to be interesting enough to garner some of his attention. “It’s a shame you’re only moderately impervious to telepathy. Perhaps you’ll improve in time?”

 

Darwin looked Charles over, noting the hair in disarray, the colorful bags underneath Charles’s eyes, and the intent, focused look in them. He was a man who wanted something. And was willing to go too far to get it.

 

Darwin decided to be blunt. “Look, I feel for you, I really do. But Erik’s a kid, and he’s my responsibility. And I don’t care how you threaten me; I just can’t let you have access to him. It’s as simple as that.”

 

Charles spun around in his chair, dropping his feet to the floor and leaning forward to plop his manila folder on Darwin’s desk. The papers inside slid partially out in a clean white spiral, before Charles shifted his weight back and propped his elbows on his knees. “I think you’ll find you can.”

 

Darwin fought not to roll his eyes, and just shuffled the papers back into their folder without looking. “Blackmail or bribery won’t help either.” He tried to slide the folder back across the desk, away from himself.

 

Charles hand shot out to stop the folder’s progress, for a long moment, both men pushed against the paperwork, before Darwin made a small chuffing sound and withdrew his hand. Charles flipped open the folder slowly, with an elegant twist of his hand. “This, my good sir, is neither.” Charles gestured at the paper. “This is legal precedent from seven different states, detailing court cases between newly-bonded alphas, like myself,” Charles gestured expansively at his chest, “and child service representatives, which, to save time, we’ll say is like yourself.” Charles licked his finger, and then flipped the first few pages of the report to the side with his finger. “Ah, here is a case from New York herself, the fine state we are currently living in.

Charles leaned back into his chair, gave Darwin a few moments to lean forward and start to read.

 

“1997. Holmes vs. Child Services of New York.  Fourteen-year-old Tasha Sebastian was imprinted on by her true alpha, Irene Dukakis. It was decided, after much deliberation, that Ms. Dukakis was to be awarded thrice-weekly visitation rights over Tasha until she turned sixteen, upon which Ms. Dukakis would be awarded full guardianship.” Charles paused. “I suppose it’s not unlike spouses gaining their underaged partner’s guardianship until they reach the age of majority.” Charles smiled wryly, just a twist of his lips. ­

 

Darwin stared at the pages in front of him, evidence of the failure of the legal system to protect an underage submissive. He took a deep breath and leaned back into his chair, before steepling his fingers across his chest. Darwin was silent for a moment. “I could contest this.”

 

Charles sprang forward, a snarl twisting his features. “If you even—”

 

Darwin leaned forward, and fixed Charles with a gaze just as intense, and spoke right over him just as he had the day before, clear and annunciated. “ _I could contest this_ , and you with your fancy-pants lawyers and your telepathy and your heaps of money would no doubt win, and you’d end up with Erik in your house and on your arm and even eventually in your bed. But those kind of legal proceedings take _time_.” Darwin still maintained Charles’s gaze, even though Charles was furious and angry enough to make his gaze almost burn upon looking.

 

“ _Or_ , Mr. Xavier, I could not contest it. I could let you have your thrice-weekly visitations and then I could eventually confer Erik’s guardianship. If you do two little things for me.” He paused.

 

Charles’s eyes sharpened, and he looked at Darwin, mildly disgusted.

 

“One,” Darwin lifted his finger up in the air to punctuate. “I want you to call Tasha Sebastian. I want you to ask her how she felt when she was imprinted on. I want you to ask her how she felt about her dom, about these legal proceedings, about becoming her dom’s legal property at sixteen. I want you to get the whole story of _this_ ,” he tapped the page sharply, “from her lips.” Darwin looked to see if Charles was still following. Charles nodded and gestured for Darwin to continue.

 

“And two.” He threw up a second finger. “I want your word; I want your word on your life, on your mother’s life, on your sister’s/brother’s/maiden aunt-twice removed’s life, on the life of _Erik Lehnsherr_ himself, that you will not consummate your bond with Erik until he gives his full and informed, enthusiastic, consent. And I don’t mean, ‘ _Oh Mr. Xavier, if it’ll make you happy_ ’, or ‘ _I suppose, since we’re destined_ ’, ‘ _If you let me go to college I’ll do it_ ’, or even ‘ _I have a slight headache right now and don’t quite feel like it_ ’. If even the tiniest part of him doesn’t want it, doesn’t want you, then you will wait. As long as it takes. Are we clear?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“You agree to both provisions?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“As long as it takes?”

 

“ _Yes_.”

 

“Swear it.”

 

“I give you my word that I will contact Tasha Sebastian and receive the full account of her imprinting and bonding, and I swear that Erik and I will not consummate our bond until he gives his most enthusiastic consent to the proceedings.”

 

“Full and informed,” Darwin prompted.

 

“His full and _informed_ , enthusiastic consent to the proceedings,” Charles repeated, dutifully.

 

Then Darwin stood up. “Now get the hell out of my office. We’ll talk about visitation when you make a damn appointment.”

 

``````

 

 

Azazel slipped into the seat next to Erik’s on the bus. Erik had both his hands fisted into the bottom half of his turtleneck.

 

“Forget to put out your laundry?”Azazel asked, smugly amused. “It’s kinda hot for a turtleneck, isn’t it?”

 

Erik didn’t say anything, which wasn’t unusual, per se, but the look of indigestion on his face was. Usually Erik’s arched eyebrow or a slight flash of his seemingly endless rows of teeth would suffice for a reply. Erik’s face just looked like it had frozen in a rictus of nausea.

 

“Erik?” Azazel dropped the teasing tone and tentatively put a hand on Erik’s shoulder. Normally Erik wasn’t one for casual touching, but it looked like he might need it.

 

“I imprinted,” Erik blurted out like it was projectile vomit. He felt like he was bottled up, under pressure, and he couldn’t hold it inside. Erik had to tell someone, he’d spent all night in thinking about yesterday and had fought all this morning over a goddamned shirt in absolute silence and he couldn’t _not_.

 

Azazel sounded wildly amused for a moment. “Oh God, was it Frost? Is that why you look like this? I know she asked you out on that date thing the other day. She may be an omega but damn that girl is fucking frightening—”.

 

“No, it wasn’t Frost, _I_  got imprinted _on_ ,and for the last time, it wasn’t a date.” Erik snapped, out, unable to help himself from rehashing the argument he’d been having all week and annoyed his confession had been interrupted. “She said the electromagnetic field I generate was screwing with her telepathy, and she said she wanted to practice—”. Erik started up the rant he’d been repeating for better part of a week before he realized just exactly what he was saying.

 

Oh Fuck. He’d stood up Emma Frost last night. That made Erik drop the bottom of his turtleneck and focus on something different for the first time in hours. Admittedly, it was hardly a date, and it wasn’t even as if he knew her much outside of when they’d literally ran into each other last Monday, she’d tried to fuck with his head in retaliation but couldn’t quite manage, and then wouldn’t let Erik just disappear until she’d gotten a promise out of him that he’d let her experiment with his natural psionic shields if she would pop in Shaw’s head and saw what he’d been putting in Erik’s case file notes.

 

And then Erik broke out in a semi-hysterical laugh, loud enough to startle Azazel. The pettiness of meeting with Emma Frost was enough to distract him from imprinting with his alpha. Erik wondered when he’d turned into a gold-fish with a three-second memory. He dug his hands harder back into his knitwear to prevent himself from yanking it off like a bare-chested heathen.

 

“Well then, who is it?” Azazel’s voice was gentle in a way few would suppose after looking at his bright red, scarred face.

 

Erik slumped into the seat, and tried to focus on the spot in the seat cushion in front of him where someone had tore a hole in the upholstery and wriggled some of the yellow foam out. “His name is Charles Xavier. He was taking a tour yesterday when he caught a look of me.” Erik grudgingly offered the information.

 

"Whoah, who? Is he an exchange student? Is he moving in?" Azazel asked, trying to puzzle out Erik's words.

 

"No." Erik closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and unclenched his hands from his sweater to lie flat on his thighs. His fingers twitched in protest. "He's old."

 

Azazel paused. “How old are we talking? Thirties? Fifties? Hugh-Hefner-old? Gum-smacking-toothless old?”

 

Erik looked over at Azazel, eyes wide. “You can imprint that old?”

 

“Yeah. Didn’t you hear on the news the other day? Two unbondeds met at a retirement home in Florida. Is that how old he is?”

 

Erik thought that news over. It was kind of cute they’d still managed to find each other that late in life. “No.  I think he’s early thirties.”

 

“That’s not too bad. So he realized he had affinity for you?”

 

Erik’s gaze sharpened on Azazel and he frowned.“What do you mean, ‘affinity’?”

 

Azazel frowned, wriggled in his sea. “You know, that’s what you have when you’re too young to imprint. A dom has an affinity for his omega. It’s what I have for Janos. You saw when I met him two years ago. All I could do was stare at him and follow him around, remember? He thought I was a fucking creeper. I had to look it up. Affinity. He’s mine. What did you think happened to bondeds when they met each other too young to imprint?”

 

“I never thought about it.” Erik liked his lips.

 

Azazel snorted. “Well you better learn, since your dom is like that now.”

 

Erik turned away, stared at the window jammed perpetually one inch from the top. It was too hot in this turtleneck. He reached out a finger and brushed the metal siding, and for the first time in years, the window slid open all the way. “It’s not affinity,” he mumbled.

 

“What?”

 

Erik cleared his throat, and looked over. “It’s not affinity. It’s a full blown imprinting. That’s what he and Shaw said. He tried to, umm…” Erik gestured with one hand and grew pink all over his face.

 

“What?” Azazel leaned forward, newly invested in the story. “Whoah. You imprinted? No! It must be your mo—umm…what happened earlier this year.” Azazel tried to recover and instead finished lamely.

 

“What do you mean by that?” Erik snapped. “Are you trying to imply that my mother getting shot in her head and _dying in front of me_  has anything to do with some crazy moron trying to bite a hole in my neck! How dare you even think such a thing?” He hissed at Azazel, his eyes green angry slits. His fingers slid free of his sweater to bunch into fists.

 

Azazel lifted a placating hand, trying to get Erik to calm down since they were on a public bus. Even if it was loud and obnoxious, this was no place to talk about anything like this. “I only meant that sometimes people imprint early if they’re in traumatic situations—”.

 

“Just shut up. I’m not traumatized. And how the hell do you even know this about bonds?! Why are you suddenly the expert on bonds? Just shut your face and—”

 

Azazel whispered furiously . “Because I found my omega two years ago and I would give _anything_ to have him be mine already. Do you know what it feels like to wake up every morning and know that the person who is meant to belong utterly to you is waking up five miles away and is not lying beside you like they’re meant to? Do you know what it feels like when you have to wear them down for months just to have a fucking conversation with you? Or how it feels when you see them kiss someone else? So I looked up early bonds and tried to figure out if it could happen early. God forbid someone try and share some information about your crappy situation with you.” Azazel turned around to face the corridor in their shared seat.

 

They sat in silence until the bus arrived at the school, each determinedly glaring at their respective view. When their time came to get up, Azazel gruffly offered without eye contact. “Sorry I brought up your mom.”

 

Erik thought about Azazel going to his mother’s funereal with him, not even saying a word when he cried big baby tears and bringing him his homework when he was still not going to school, and punching that asshole Steve Korn in the face for him when he’d said Erik looked like a loser for wearing the same shirt (the one Mr. Xavier destroyed) for a whole month straight. He made determined eye-contact with the exposed foam in the seat in front of him.

 

Erik swallowed and flushed and just about choked, but he got out in return: “Sorry. For telling you to shut up.”

 

Azazel looked at Erik, and semi-smiled, white teeth against his bright red face. He punched Erik in the shoulder hard enough for Erik to glare and rub it. “Come on. Let’s get off this stupid bus.”


	8. Into Dr. Shaw's Office

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case it’s confusing, Emma Frost knows Charles because he’s an omega level telepath with fucking impressive range and I’m likening telepathy to old school telephones where several people shared the same line: if you tried to pick up while they someone else was talking, you’d overhear them. So if you try to read minds in Mr. Xavier’s range, you end up picking up the buzzing of Charles’s mind in the background.

Erik knew he was in deep shit when he turned down the hallway to his locker and saw Emma Frost standing with her arms crossed in front of his locker. He braced himself for an imminent explosion.

 

“Where the fuck were you?” Emma snapped the second he and Azazel were in hearing distance. “I waited for fifteen minutes. That’s ten more than I would have given anyone else.” At Erik’s blank look she narrowed her eyes at him. Erik felt her mental touch wiggling against his mind for a moment, and Erik did his best to think of the one time when he’d been about seven and he’d stuck his finger in an electrical socket, because he could _feel_ the electromagnetic energy thrumming through the wall and just had to touch it. For a moment, it had felt like he’d felt like he’d transcended his body, and was connected, everywhere, to everything, before the whole street’s power had blown out and shocked him so badly he’d had to spend the next few hours in the emergency room.

 

Emma glared nastily at Erik for a long second, before her gaze jerked to Azazel and narrowed again. “You imprinted,” she said, shocked.  Pause, then a clarification: “You were imprinted _on!_ By Charles Xavier!” Emma’s angry visage dropped completely, and she burst out laughing. “Oh god, this is priceless.”

 

Erik snarled, and moved to walk past her. But Emma had other ideas, and since she was right in front of his locker, all it took was a little side-step and she blocked him completely, still laughing. “Charles Fucking Xavier. ” She laughed again, the happiest Erik had ever seen her, before flipping her beautifully arranged curls over her shoulder and smirking at him. The smirk was filled with mocking amusement and a know-it-all smugness, and Erik fought the urge to punch her. “Well, I was half-right.” Her eyes danced before she patted his cheek in a light slap and sashayed away. “A shame I suppose, but now I have an excellent starting point in regards to my own mutation,” she said without turning around, and Erik understood that she’d dismissed him, that her statement was solely for her benefit. Erik wanted to growl.

 

Erik waited, eyes narrowed at her as Emma flounced away without a backward glance, derriere and hips swaying artfully. He enjoyed the provided view as Emma’d intended, fingers held motionless at his side, until she approached a group of scared freshman. When the scared little things scrambled to part halfway around her, he flicked his fingers to tug the stainless steel core embedded in her right high heel.

 

Erik turned back to his locker before he could watch her tumble to the ground in a heap, but, judging by the sound and the way Azazel crowed in absolute joy before punching him in the shoulder, it had been beautiful. 

 

Erik realized his lips had cocked up in a small smile and his sweater wasn’t bothering him any as he pulled his textbooks out of his locker. And then his small bright spot crashed and burned around him at the sound of his most hated voice in the whole world. “Mr. Lehnsherr. I’d like you to accompany me to my office for a moment.”

 

Erik fought the urge to lean his face against the cool metal of the locker and took a deep breath. He didn’t turn around. “We don’t have an appointment until Thursday, sir.” He tried to not to notice the small hum of Shaw’s trademark tie clip and his ridiculously swanky rollerball pen.

 

“Ah, but Mr. Summers has agreed with me, especially after the… startling…events of yesterday, that it would be in your best interest to have more counseling sessions every week. We both thought you might appreciate someone to talk to, someone to ease you into this new bonded world.”

 

Erik tried not to vomit in the back of his throat. He tilted his head to the right, so he could peek out the corner of his eye at Azazel. Azazel grimaced and made a small choking sound in the back of his throat, before rolling his eyes back into his head and sinking a little bit in the knees, as if he was keeling over and choking to death on Shaw’s smarm.

 

Erik almost regained his smile, bolstered a bit, before turning around to face Dr. Shaw. “All right,” he grudgingly gritted out.

 

“Excellent!” Dr. Shaw clapped his hands together once before showing all of his perfectly white and even tombstone teeth in a happy smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Erik flinched, then, as Dr. Shaw reached out his hand to middle of Erik’s back, before settling there and exerting a gentle pressure to guide him away.

 

Suddenly all the itchy, crawly sensations of the sweater were back in full force, but Erik tried not to look back one more time at Azazel.

 

There was no need to be a sissy about this; he tried to tell himself—even if Shaw had never tried to escort him quite like this before.

 

Erik fisted the hand not holding his backpack into the bottom of the sweater once more, tried not to compare the march to Dr. Shaw’s office with a walk to his own execution.

 

 

Dr. Shaw had weirdly situated Erik into his chair before gliding around his desk to his sit himself in his own. Erik couldn’t help raising his eyebrow up at Shaw in confusion, before, as was his ritual, picking up his chair and moving it farther away from Shaw. He hated being that close to the man.

 

Dr. Shaw sighed, but leaned forward anyway. Erik fought the urge to pick up his chair again. “Would you care for a sweet today?” he asked, as was his wont, gesturing today to a bowl of beautifully wrapped Hershey’s kisses.

 

Erik shook his head, like always, even though playing with one of the foiled wrappers might have been soothing. He’d looked it up early on, and realized Dr. Shaw was trying to associate sweet things with talking to him, in some weird sort of operant conditioning, but all Dr. Shaw’d managed to do was kill whatever sweet tooth he’d once had. He fisted his hands in his sweater and swore he could feel Mr. Xavier’s mark throbbing in his neck.

 

“Would you like to talk about what happened yesterday?” Shaw offered, as he lowered the bowl of Kisses back flush with the desk.

 

“Not particularly.” He tried not to mumble and speak clearly, but it was hard. He felt like he regressed to a little eight year old every time he stepped into Dr. Shaw’s office.

 

“I could offer you important life experience. I, after all, have been bonded once before,” Dr. Shaw tried to say soothingly.

 

For a moment Erik was almost curious, wondering what kind of bondmate Shaw had chosen. Erik rather doubted Shaw had a soul, so he had serious doubts about the man having any sort of soulmate. 

 

Shaw must have sensed Erik’s slightly-less-than-complete apathy, and continued: “I met her when I was twenty three. She was beautiful. Her name was Samantha. She thought it was amusing she’d turned out to be Samantha Shaw, ‘S’, ‘S’.”

 

Shaw’s smarmy smile faded at the corners a little, but somehow grew more real, and he looked down at his hands for a minute.

 

Erik cocked his head at Shaw in confusion, before Shaw seemed to regain himself and he looked up and the smile brightened into fakeness once more. “She died in an accident, but I had seven years with her. I know quite a lot about the bonding dynamic,” he finished, and shifted farther forward his chair. “We could talk about the sort of things Mr. Xavier might expect from you.” He married his fingers together on top of his desk.

 

Erik squirmed in his seat, and made eye-contact with the table top again. He clenched more fiercely at his turtleneck.

 

“We could talk about coming to terms with your dynamic?”

 

Erik tried to slip into the sort of silence that had led Dr. Shaw to leave him alone before.

 

“Oh for God’s sake,” Dr. Shaw burst out with, before dropping his voice lower and imbuing it with cold hard steel. “Stop fiddling with your shirt.” Erik jolted in his chair, as something about that voice caught and held his attention, made his body tense and wait for more. He stared down at his own hands where they had stilled in the cotton, and his head started panicking. He’d been trying to stop them all morning, and there they were, lying quiescent, if still clenched.

 

“I _said_ , stop fiddling with your shirt,” Shaw’s voice flowed out of him, silky and hard, and Erik hated it, but the itching sensation at the back of his neck faded into a to a dull twitch with that order, and his hands slid out of his turtleneck like he’d wanted to all morning. He stared at the wrinkled spots where his hands had once rested in the cloth, before Shaw spoke again.

 

“Look at me.” And Erik looked up, eyes wide, absolutely shocked at the stunning urge to obey.

 

“Good.” Dr. Shaw said, and smiled. For the first time ever, ever since Erik had first noted Dr. Shaw also was in possession of some frightening teeth, Erik liked seeing it. Erik had pleased him. The vomit sensation from before at his locker was back, but this time, he didn’t have Azazel to make faces.

 

“Dear God, if I’d only known this before, it would have made this whole process ten times easier!” Dr. Shaw said, as if he was disappointed in Erik for not telling him that Erik responded to being ordered around in the new voice. Erik didn’t know what to do. His body started tingling, and Erik felt his heart thudding in his throat and the thick pulse of fear in his mouth.

 

“Now, _tell me_ what happened to you yesterday afternoon. _Tell me_ what you did to get our dear Mr. Xavier to imprint on _you._ ”

 

Erik struggled, his mouth opening and closing for a few moments as he fought viciously for the right to say nothing. “I-I-I… Stop doing that!”  Erik stood up, desperately ignoring the vicious ringing of Shaw’s voice in his head.

 

“Erik!” Dr. Shaw ground out, in that voice, and Erik flinched. He snatched up his backpack from where he’d let it rest near his feet, and burst from the room.

 

When he slid into Physics five minutes later, face like chalk and completely silent, Ms. Haller didn’t say anything, despite her normal policy of late attendance, just continued her lecture on elastic collisions without pause. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You all have no idea how hard it was to keep Erik from saying, in the part where he’s being harassed by Shaw: “ I-I-I- Work OUT!” like this guy in the dramatic declaration of “Sexy and I Know It”. (Awesome starts at 1:06: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ-KxVjDGGc , the line is at 1:47) But somehow I don’t think it would have fit the tone I was going for.


End file.
